Transparency data

Birthday Honours 2021 Overseas and International List: notes on higher awards

Published 11 June 2021

GCMG

Simon Gerard, Lord McDonald of Salford KCMG KCVO

Former Permanent Under-Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Lord McDonald is recognised for his outstanding leadership of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and HM Diplomatic Service from 2015-2020. This followed a career history of diplomatic excellence, including as HM Ambassador to Germany and Israel, as well as Foreign Policy adviser to two Prime Ministers. Lord McDonald led the Department with clarity and compassion through the exceptional circumstances of EU Exit and the early stages of the COVID-19 response and successfully drove a major modernisation programme including the largest expansion of the overseas network in a generation.

KCMG

Jeremy Fleming CB

Director Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)

Jeremy Fleming is recognised for his exceptional leadership as Director of GCHQ. This follows a long career in the Security Service (MI5) where he made a significant contribution to the investigation and disruption of the most serious threats to national security, including from international and domestic terrorism. He led MI5’s preparations for the London Olympics and in the Home Office, shaped the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy. Since joining GCHQ, he has overseen its transformation into a cyber organisation with the establishment of the National Cyber Security Centre and in partnership with Defence, creation of the National Cyber Force. Over the past year he has repositioned GCHQ to support the national response to the pandemic. As a result of Jeremy’s leadership, GCHQ is more transparent, outward facing and directly engaged in protecting and advising the public from cyber threats.

Roderick Liddell

Lately Registrar at the European Court of Human Rights

Rod Liddell is recognised for his outstanding contribution to the protection of human rights in Europe through his longstanding involvement in the work of the European Court of Human Rights. For over 25 years in different senior management posts he played a key role in the lengthy reform process which followed the greatly increased membership of the Court after 1989 and the massive growth in the quantity and gravity of cases that resulted. In particular as Registrar, the most senior non-judicial position at the Court, Mr Liddell worked with three Court Presidents to deliver on the reform package successfully negotiated by the UK Chairmanship of the Council of Europe in the Brighton Declaration. This has helped to transform the performance of the Court so that it is well positioned to pursue the goals which guided him throughout his career, ensuring that the most important cases are dealt with in a timely way and that ultimately the Court is more effective at holding States to account for human rights violations in their jurisdictions.

Professor Myles Antony Wickstead CBE

Chair, Joffe Charitable Trust

Professor Myles Wickstead is recognised for an exceptional and sustained contribution to international development. After a distinguished 30-year civil service career, he has dedicated the last 15 years to helping the world’s poorest through continued service in this field, much of which has been voluntary. This has resulted in significant impact, not only through improving lives, but also through enhancing a strong, positive international profile for the UK in the process.

Knight Bachelor

Dr Michael Houghton

Director, Li Ka Shing Applied Virology Institute & Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology & Immunology, University of Alberta, Canada

Dr Michael Houghton is recognised for an outstanding contribution to medicine and international health. In October last year, he, along with two other US-based scientists, were jointly honoured with the prestigious Nobel prize in medicine for their joint discovery of the hepatitis C virus, a major cause of liver disease. For Dr Houghton, the award marked over 30 years of influential research from discovering the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in 1989, to the development of a vital blood-screening test in 1990, to developing a vaccine, which is currently in pre-clinical trials. His work and achievements have transformed the understanding and treatment of hepatitis C, a virus that currently infects more than 70 million people, and kills 400,000 a year.

Honorary KBE

Professor Adrian Hill

Director of the Jenner Institute and Lakshmi Mittal and Family Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University

Professor Adrian Hill is recognised for an outstanding contribution to science and public health through his role as Director of the Jenner Institute, the world’s largest university-based vaccinology institute and the first to have developed a licensed global vaccine for COVID-19. In this role, Professor Hill successfully led and pioneered the rapid development and testing of novel vaccination strategies, using safe viral vectors to deliver fragments of pathogens to stimulate strong immune responses. The result of this work has been highly significant in supporting the global effort against the COVID-19 virus.